In my practice we measure and record the tinnitus before and after therapy.
Biofeedback has been successful for my patients.
I first published on this method in 1974 and have used it since.
I will explain how this works for tinnitus.
Define Tinnitus Tinnitus is a sound heard by a patient that no one else can hear.
To this day there are no instruments that can record subjective tinnitus.
Tinnitus can have many causes including:

• Drugs such as aspirin related medications
• After Whiplash
• From jaw problems
• Changes in the brain causing pressure on the hearing nerves
• Changes in pressure in the inner ear.
  
• These and others are medical conditions that can be treated.
  
• Tinnitus following noise exposure such as explosions, rock concerts, aging, and gradual loss due to constant noise are more difficult to treat.
  

Other Therapies:

• Distraction: Listening to Broadway Musicals distracts from the presence of tinnitus.
  Any activity that engages the mind can distract from the tinnitus
• Masking: If you put in a sound similar to the tinnitus, the body hears the input sound and stops paying attention to the tinnitus sound.
  
• Hearing aids: When the tinnitus patient has an accompanying hearing loss, if he wears hearing aids the sound input provides a masking sound as well as a distraction when he hears the environmental sounds.
  
• New tracks: For my patients I have them record four hours of relaxing music that they like and have them listen to this or have it in the background four hours a day.
  The idea is that the tinnitus sound has an electrical path or track and when you listen to your music four hours a day, you displace the tinnitus track.
  The Cochrane Medical library recently concluded that the five thousand dollar special sounds that you listen to for hours have not shown adequate results.
  For some of my patients this track method has helped, and there is little or no cost involved, just use your own iPod and music you like.
  
• Cognitive Therapy: A new patient hears the tinnitus.
  She is born with a stress reflex.
  She considers the tinnitus something very bad.
  The more her anxiety the worse the tinnitus symptoms.
  With cognitive therapy you convince her that the tinnitus is not a danger, tumor-not a bad thing.
  With relaxation, the tinnitus becomes like a tight belt or bra.
  
• Alpha lipoic acid, magnesium, B12 and others.
  There have been reports of various vitamins helping tinnitus.
  Except for B12 and Magnesium, it is difficult to decide which element might be missing in an otherwise healthy person.
  The solution, at my clinic, is to provide the products known to support hearing in test animals, in a synergistic form.
  
• Miracle tinnitus ear drops, the five-day cure and the "organic" solution.
  When I read these advertisements, how I wish my patients looked as happy and healthy as the smiling glowing persons pictured in these advertisements.
  

What is biofeedback? When you have a muscle contraction there is an electric discharge that can be measured.
When your brow contracts from worry, the electricity of that frown can be measured and displayed on a large screen.
If I ask you to relax, you look at the screen and SEE that you are putting out, say thirty units.
Now you watch the screen and "relax" so that the screen shows only five units.
You have relaxed successfully by getting feedback when you do it right.
When you are learning a tennis serve and you have a full time coach showing you how to do it right, when you are doing it right, that too is feedback.
When a new teenager is putting on lipstick for the first time, she uses a mirror with good lighting.
That too is feedback.
You can't have anxiety if your muscles are relaxed Scientists have shown that you can't have anxiety if your muscles are relaxed.
This is because in tension and stress, muscles tighten.
If your muscles are relaxed, this sends a message to your stress center that there is no tiger, no reason to make adrenalin.
Turns out that your face is the number one muscle for sending this message to the stress center.
Relieve your tinnitus by mirror feedback You are born with a stress mechanism.
When you hear the sound of danger approaching, your fight/flight mechanism is triggered.
Unfortunately for most of my patients, they have identified the tinnitus as a "stressor sound.
" You get the same reaction from the tinnitus as you would from hearing a train approaching when your car is stuck on the train tracks.
This stress reaction builds: the more the anxiety, the more nervous, the more the tinnitus bothers you.
By practicing mirror biofeedback- look in the Mirror.
See your face, jaw and shoulders relax- do this daily.
By reducing the stressor from the tinnitus, then it no longer evokes a stress chemical.
Then it becomes less intrusive, more like a tight belt or bra.
By this practice you also are using Cognition.
You accept that what you have is not a "bad.
" That is easy to say, but hard to do when you are tense and anxious.
After daily practice of mirror biofeedback, that tension ceases.
Take care of your tinnitus Remember there are medical causes for tinnitus and these must be checked out by your doctor too.
Hypertension, a Thyroid condition, and drug reaction- these are all common causes and can treated.